


Lost With You

by Lady_Therion



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Post-ACOFAS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-05-27 14:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15026522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Therion/pseuds/Lady_Therion
Summary: Cassian and Nesta struggle to fix all the broken pieces between them.





	1. Part One

Cassian sees her drinking alone.

The tavern she visits this time is a nameless one. It is a den of thieves, harlots, and mercenaries. Every face he scans is as rough and weary as the interior. Why Nesta had chosen this forlorn hole in the wall is beyond him. Then again, much of what she’s done lately is beyond him.

He hates feeling helpless, so he concentrates on not feeling anything at all.

It looks like Nesta has the same motive.

He saunters over to the counter and takes the empty seat next to her. Her back stiffens, but otherwise she pretends that he’s invisible. She signals the barkeep to serve her a glass of poisonous-looking ale. Her fourth, if the other glasses were any indication.

The barkeep serves him one too. It appears to be the only drink on the house menu. The greenish black liquid reminds him of pond scum.

“The trick is not to smell it,” she says.

“Is that right?”

She downs half her glass in one go. If it were anyone else, he would have been impressed. But there’s a resignation in her eyes, a numbness, that makes him flinch. He would rather have all her venom than this dark and empty void.

“You’ve been following me.”

It’s not a question.

“Not at all,” he says. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“Is that right?”

They drink in silence. Or rather, Nesta drinks and Cassian tries not to stare. Too bad there isn’t much else to look at besides the dingy walls and dusty beams. On the far end of the tavern is a giant corkboard papered with hundreds of bounty claims. He wouldn’t be surprised if a third of those bounties were being served right here.

“Did my sister send you?”

Feyre did not. In fact, he had come here _against_ the advice of his High Lady. The rest of the Inner Circle, too, for that matter. It’s not in his nature to disobey. But sometimes, there are orders that even he couldn’t abide by.

“Like I said, I just happened to be strolling by.”

“There is no ‘strolling by’ in this part of the city.”

She’s right. There isn’t. But he has no retort for that, so he sips his drink instead...and grimaces.

“This tastes like ass. And not the good kind.”

Nesta laughs; a sound that’s more mirthless than joyful. But still, it’s a _laugh_ and Cassian will take his victories where he can.

“Why are you really here, Cassian?”

Heat spreads at the back of his neck at the sound of his name. She says it tiredly: like it’s a burden; a weight too heavy to bear. He does his best to ignore the tightening in his chest.

“I’ll tell you why if you tell me first.”

“I came here to get a drink,” she says. “And to be alone.”

“There are plenty of other places where you can do that,” he says.

 _Places that are safer_ , he thinks. _More_ _hygienic_.

“This place suits me just fine.”

“Cut the bullshit, Nesta.”

The glare she deals him would have sliced down a lesser male like wheat. Still, it takes five hundred years of training and willpower to meet those blue-gray eyes. Eyes that chase him from his dreams. Eyes that shed tears for him a lifetime ago…

But there’s no fire in that gaze.

Only ruin.

The fury in her expression fades as quickly as it comes. She’s even thinner than she was at Solstice. Her collarbones are too sharp, her cheeks are too gaunt, and her hair is dull and brittle. She’s still beautiful—she will always be beautiful. But she is also extinguishing herself and the sight of it lacerates him like a sword to the gut.

“I thought I told you to stay away,” she says.

He wants to argue that he _had_ stayed away. And look where it got him.

She snorts when he says nothing and drains the rest of her drink. “Why do you even bother?”

Her sister once asked him the very same thing.

He swallows his ale, letting the acrid and bitter flavor distract him from the gravity of her question. It’s a question he’s asked himself a thousand times, a thousand more if he also counts the first time he failed her.

“Why won’t you let me in, Nesta?”

_Why won’t you let me help you?_

She grows unnaturally still, as though his words turned her into stone.

“Why won’t I let you in?” Her lips twist into a snarl. “What gives you _the right_ to ask me such a thing? I am not some _doll_ for you to fix. Nor am I here to absolve you of your obvious _guilt._ I am my own person and I make my own choices.”

He can’t help himself. “And how’s that working out for you?”

The silver she throws on the counter clatters like bones.

“Nesta, wait—”

She doesn’t spare him a single glance as she strides off into the night.

* * *

Cassian doesn’t see her again for another few weeks.

Granted, he’s had other shit to deal with than a mere slip of a girl who’s done nothing but wreak havoc on his judgment since day one.

Still, he can’t stop thinking about her. Or how close they were to having a civil conversation before he pissed her off. She hadn’t growled at him for a full ten minutes. That had to be some kind of record.

Not that he was keeping score.

The next time Cassian sees her, it’s purely by accident.

She is sitting on a bench in an empty park. The air is cold enough that he can see her breath. If not for that, he would have mistaken her for one of the statues.

She isn’t wearing a cloak. Or gloves. Despite that, she doesn’t tremble or shiver, as though the chill weather has no effect on her.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says.

He takes a seat at the opposite end of the bench, tucking in his wings and resisting the very real urge to offer her his scarf. Or his coat. Something to shield her raw and red skin.

Her eyes shutter as though this is _the worst possible time_ for him to join her. But has there ever been a time where she didn’t loathe his company?

“Just strolling by?” she remarks dryly.

“I happen to mean it this time,” he says. “This park is one of my favorite ones in the city.”

An eternity passes between them.

“Was it you who commissioned the memorial for the fallen?”

She inclines her head to one of the marble pillars in front of them. The two slabs of polished stone stand at either end of a small garden square. One bears the names of all those lost in the Battle of Velaris. The other bears the names of those lost in Hybern’s War.

“I wanted to make sure the names of my soldiers were remembered,” he says. “Illyrians are not High Fae, so the blood they shed is often forgotten. Not that my own people give a damn.”

They will never forgive him for sending their sons and brothers and fathers into the killing fields; into a conflict where they had no stakes or interest in.

Nesta stares ahead.

“You wanted to honor them,” she says, eventually. “That’s noble.”

She doesn’t say it like an insult. Mother above, is she actually giving him a _compliment_?

“Thank you,” he says, and means it.

“There’s no need to thank me,” she says. “It’s just the truth.”

For a moment, he can’t speak. He is too thrown by the conviction in her voice, the earnestness. It’s not just empty praise. Coming from her, those words hold weight. He wants to tell her so, but is foiled again by his own self-doubt. Just because she hasn’t bitten his head off (yet) doesn’t mean she isn’t still vulnerable, still wounded.

 _Proceed with caution_ , his instincts warn him.

“You should head inside,” he says. “Night will fall. It’ll be colder.”

“I don’t mind,” she says.

_I do._

Cassian looks around. Maybe she was waiting for someone?

“What are you doing here?” He asks.

She draws a deep breath. As if what she is about to say will take every ounce of energy she has left.

“If you must know...I’m trying.”

“Trying?”

“Yes, _trying_ ,” she says. “That’s what you told me to do. Or have you forgotten?”

He hadn’t. _Perhaps you could find it in yourself to try a little harder this year._ He had said those words to provoke her; to make her see that pushing him away—pushing her _family_ away—was destroying her from the inside.

She stands, smoothing out the charcoal gray folds of her gown. _Thin_ , he thinks. _She’s so, so thin_.

“My father’s ashes lie at the end of this path.” She points to the gravel walkway that leads to the end of the park. “It leads to a private grove that’s well tended. At least, that’s what Elain tells me. Feyre has chosen well. She always does.” Cassian doesn’t know what Nesta means by this, but at least her tone is even and not exasperated. “I’ve been coming here once a week. Getting closer and closer to the gates that surround my father’s headstone.” She turns to him. Is it a trick of the light? Or are her eyes lined with silver? “This is as far as I go today.”

She's almost halfway there.

“Nesta...that’s…”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Look at you like what?”

“Like I just dug out all your insides and ate them,” she says. “I’m not entirely without a heart, you know. Without a soul.”

“I never said—”

“You told me once that my sisters loved me, but you couldn’t understand why.” Her voice grows quiet. “I...I don’t understand why, either.” She glares at him over her shoulder. “But I’m _trying._ ”

Overwhelmed, he thinks. He is too overwhelmed by a rising tide of...of what? Pain, regret, and hope. And fear. Fear, most of all. Fear that he has driven her away towards the brink of something. Fear that if he fucks up now, he will sever the tenuous and inexplicable thread that binds them together.

“I could go with you.”

She stops dead in her tracks.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable,” he amends. “I’m just….” He blows out a breath, unaware that he’d been holding it the entire time. “You were right, earlier. About the guilt. And I’m not asking you to absolve me. I’m just saying that you don’t have to be alone.”

 _ **We** don’t have to be alone_ , he thinks.  
  
A small crease appears between her brows. But she doesn’t sneer at him. She doesn’t scoff.

“I’ll think on it,” she says.

Cassian knows that he shouldn’t, but he can’t keep himself from grinning like a fool.

* * *

He sees her again the following week, and the week after that, and the week after that.

It is the most time they have spent together, alone.

Nesta has said nothing about his offer. She gives him no thanks, no gratitude. But Cassian doesn’t expect her to do this with words. Nesta, he realizes, has used words all her life as a weapon. Old habits die hard, if not at all. He wishes he could say that he understood. As a child, he had done more than his fair share of lashing out. Snarled and bit at the hands that fed him. Rhysand and his mother...he didn’t know what to _do_ with their kindness, their compassion. Not at first.

So he keeps his distance. Because this peace—this ceasefire—between him and Nesta is fragile enough. Any misstep can send him back to square one.

The good thing is, she looks...better. Less hollow. Less ashen. She starts wearing proper layers. Some with color. She also seems to be gaining more weight.

The walks they share are often quiet. He’s fine with it—the silence. It’s not an angry silence, for one. It’s just...strangely comforting. There they are, side by side, walking the length of the park, getting closer and closer to the wrought iron gate that surrounds her father’s resting place.

He wants to tell her that he’s proud of her.

And he is. So much so that he can barely contain himself.

But he's also aware of how frayed she is at the edges, and that any sign of his sympathy could be interpreted as a sign of her own weakness. So he holds off, content to shadow her on her journey. Grateful even, if not also incredulous, that she is allowing him to do so.

One day, they almost reach the gate.

They’re so close that its shadow casts long slanted bars across their feet.

Nesta swallows, her breath coming short, as though standing there is causing her physical pain. _She’s trying_ , he thinks. On instinct, he grabs her gloved hand. Unlike last time, she doesn’t try to shake off his grip. Instead, her fingers clasp him tight, as though she will float away if he ever let her go.

He doesn’t let her go.

“It’s all right,” he says. “We can go back.”

Nesta opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Let’s go back.”

She’s still holding his hand by the time they reach the bench where he first found her.

“Your memorial,” she says. “Does it include my father’s name as well?”

“Of course.”

“Can you show me?”

He brings her to the stand before the memorial’s mirror-black surface. It doesn’t take him long to find her father’s name—he had it engraved in gold, instead of silver. His arrival had turned the tide of the war. Were it not for him, all would have been lost.

Nesta traces the engraving.

In all the months since that horrible day, she hasn’t once said anything about her father. How he died...telling her how much he loved her since he first held her. He had heard bits and pieces from Feyre and Elain—how Nesta’s grudge against him had eclipsed her capacity to forgive.

Cassian doesn't know what it's like to have a father.

But he can only imagine a tenth of what Nesta is enduring.

“I wish…” She sheds no tears, but her voice wavers. “But it’s no use wishing.”

Without thinking, he reaches for her. She doesn’t resist him, even when he tips up her chin.

“Wishing can’t bring back the dead or undo the past,” he says. “We all mourn in our own way, Nesta. I’m just sorry that I didn’t acknowledge your grief for what it was.”

There. That is the truth of it; the truth and all its imperfections. His mistakes and hers.

Again, that preternatural staring. As if she is trying to reach into deepest, most stained parts of soul. He is a lowborn Illyrian bastard. There is not much he can offer her. But instead of turning away, she draws closer. Pausing before she rests her head on his broad chest. Sighing as though their walk had taken days, not minutes.

Her scent fills him, stirring old feelings and washing away old resentments. He embraces her, holds tightly her to him. Not desperately. Not addled with lust. He just wants to ease her. He wants to take away all her hurts.

“I’m so tired, Cassian,” she whispers.

This time, when she says his name, it feels like a balm. Like it’s the only thing that can soothe her. He untucks his wings and encloses her inside a dark cocoon of privacy, of warmth—of his protection. This time, _she_ is the one keeping him anchored and _he_ is the one that’s adrift. The moment is awkward, but gentle. An unexpected tenderness. It’s an entirely new feeling; this softness between them. This hush, this odd tranquility.

They are two puzzle pieces trying to find their alignment. But there is no doubt that either of them fits.

“I can take you home if you want.”

She shakes her head, burrowing herself deeper into his arms. Watching her do so almost makes him dizzy. The need to fuss and dote like an overbearing idiot is becoming harder and harder to stifle.

So he holds her tighter and says, “I can take you somewhere else.”

His heart swells and shatters when he feels her nod.

“Please,” she says. “Please, Cassian.”


	2. Part Two

Cassian doesn’t tell her where they’re going.

Nesta chooses not to ask him. All she knows is the space between his arms and how he carries her through the skies as if she weighs nothing. Given how thin she is, this is not too much of an exaggeration.

She wishes she could say something; something that will not betray the fractures within her. When she closes her eyes, she can see them: these deeply gouged marks on a wall that separate _before_ and _after_.

Before, when her father was alive.

Then after...

Anyhow, talking is impossible.

Instead, she buries her face in the crook of Cassian’s neck. She seeks his warmth, his _scent_ , on instinct. It puts her at ease...and it puts her on guard. Part of her always wants to push him away. Part of her always wants to draw him closer. Even now, she doesn’t know which side of her will win.

No matter what, she is never the victor.

If Cassian senses her inner conflict, he doesn’t acknowledge it. It’s just as well. She doesn’t acknowledge his own turmoil either, even though he wears it so plainly on his face. Not long ago, she would have mocked him for it. Anything to keep him at arm’s length. Anything to keep him from looking too closely.

And yet, she can no longer resist.

She can no longer transmute her fear into rage. She can no longer whet that rage into hate. And if she can no longer do either of those things then...who is she?

Not knowing is the cost of trying.

The further they fly, the further she can feel herself recede.

Right down into the starless depths where no one can reach her.

* * *

They soar over the ocean.

All around them is the smell of salt, the cry of gulls, and the half-frozen air.

_Please, Cassian._

The words tear at him as he doubles up the shield around Nesta, keeping her warm with the flow of his power. She hasn’t mentioned being cold, but Cassian doesn’t take any chances. He knows how brutal these high altitudes can be.

But that is the least of his worries.

There is a growing vacancy in Nesta’s eyes that fills him with dread. He’s seen it before: on his soldiers, on his brothers...on himself. It’s like watching someone sink underwater. Worse still: it’s something that can’t be vanquished by quick fists or sharp blades.

Is he even equal to this task? Nesta Archeron has always been a creature all her own. Vicious, wicked, unyielding. The fact that she has asked him, _him_ , to take her away...to give refuge from whatever demons haunt her...it throws him. Boundaries have shifted; the lines have been redrawn.

So here they are.

Without thinking, he rubs a circle on the nape of her neck with a calloused thumb. It’s a clumsy attempt at comfort, but she doesn’t shy away from it; doesn’t tell him to keep his grubby bastard paws to himself. He thinks about that moment in the park: of how they held one another; of how uneasy it felt and yet how right.

“We’re almost there,” he says, more to himself than anything.

Beneath him, Nesta tenses.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s just...the waves.”

Cassian glances at the dark sea, how it churns like the contents of a cauldron.

_The Cauldron…_

Cursing himself, he flies higher. The boom of his wings ring through the gray and heavy clouds like claps of thunder. He rises higher still, as much as he dares without breaking into the atmosphere. He rises until he can feel Nesta’s hold on him loosen. It’s the closest she’s ever come to telling him that she is afraid and that is another revelation that nearly fells him.

“I will _never_ forget that day.”

She says this with a trace of bitterness. Like her re-making is a shackle she can never be free of. If only he can tell her that she is stronger than she knows. If only he can tell her she has the power to claim any throne, conquer any realm. If she dares. But he doesn’t know how to do this without diminishing her pain; without making her suffering trite. So he doesn’t.

“Neither will I,” he whispers.

There is an age of regret in those words.

* * *

It’s almost nightfall by the time they touch down.

Cassian has brought her to the coast. Nesta recognizes the hilly terrain from Amren’s maps.

He sets her gently on the soft grass, eyeing her with caution. She senses that he does not know what to make of her. It was easier when they were at odds; when every encounter was fraught with hostility. Take that away and what do they have? _This_ , she supposes. Even if she doesn’t know exactly what _this_ is. A beginning, perhaps. Of what, she doesn’t know.

“This way,” he says.

She follows.

They climb up a stone path that leads to a small cottage. For a moment, it reminds her of home—that hovel in the woods where she and her sisters once lived. The sight of it freezes her insides, but as they walk closer, she realizes that the cottage is newer, more inviting...well cared for. There are flower boxes in front of the glass-pane windows and a modest yard with a vegetable plot.

 _Elain would like it here_ , she thinks. _Feyre too._

“It’s not much,” says Cassian, leading her past the low front gate. “The cabin I share with my brothers is larger.”

Nesta has never seen that fabled family cabin. Feyre never invited her. Then again, Nesta never asked.

Inside, the cottage is clean, sparse, orderly. A far cry from her own dingy apartment. There is a little kitchen with a pot-bellied stove along the far right wall and a large fireplace in the middle facing a careworn, but comfortable-looking, sofa. Above them is a loft with a bed and a small bookshelf. The privy, he tells her, is just outside.

“This is yours?”

“I built it,” he says and shrugs like it’s nothing.

It’s not nothing, Nesta wants to say. It’s not nothing to make something with your own hands; to find the means to provide for yourself. But her tongue cannot seem to form the words.

“It’s lovely,” she says instead.

He smirks. “That’s the second compliment you’ve paid me now.”

Her lips twitch, despite herself. Here she is, standing at the edge of the abyss and somehow Cassian manages to keep her from falling.

Then she feels it: the smallest of tugs, as if there is a string tied around her ribs...

“Nesta?”

“I need to rest.”

She cannot name the emotion that darkens his hazel eyes. Or rather, she chooses not to.

“Of course,” says Cassian.

They part for the night, leaving things unspoken.

* * *

Once again, Nesta is alone.

Cassian, to her surprise, does not stay in the cottage with her. Why she expected otherwise is a question she does not want to answer. In fact, the only time he visits is when she is running low on food or wood. She should tell him that he doesn’t have to bother. But she doesn’t.

Because she wants him to come back.

She wonders if he knows. Given his uncanny talent for reading others, it’s very likely. Still, he leaves her be. But instead of feeling relieved, all she feels is...agitation.

So she tries to fill the time.

She sleeps. She reads. She eats whatever meals that Cassian has prepared for her. Sometimes, she walks. And when she does, she finds herself looking at the empty space beside her.

Even when Cassian _does_ visit, she’s still unsatisfied. Their conversations are as thin as spiderwebs and just as insubstantial. He asks her how she’s feeling and she tells him that she’s fine. These are, by far, some of the most polite encounters they’ve ever had. They are also the most meaningless. If he feels impatient at her monosyllabic replies, he gives no hint of it. He just looks at her expectantly, as if willing her to say something different. Willing her, perhaps, to speak of the moment they shared in the park.

She says nothing of it, however.

And so it goes.

Today, she fills her time by watching the sea.

A storm is brewing on the horizon. Nesta can see it from the cliffs, the hem of her gown billowing behind her. The scene before her matches her mood to perfection.

She tells herself that she isn’t waiting for him. The lie sets her teeth on edge.

“I’ll be back tomorrow before sundown,” he had told her, before taking off.

The clouds above her are as dark as funeral shrouds, so she cannot tell if it is sundown or not. Yet she searches the skies for a familiar set of wings, wondering if the storm would delay his arrival. Or if he would arrive at all.

She knows that Cassian does not give in easily. She also knows that he can be just as vulnerable as she. That he hides behind his bawdy humor just as she hides behind her cold disdain. Even one of the most powerful Illyrians in history has his limits. Nesta always seemed to be testing them...

Lightning strikes and the cliffs beneath her split apart with a sickening crack.

Then three things happen.

Rain falls.

And so does she.

And as she plummets into the unforgiving waters below, she hears her name carried across the wind.

_Nesta, Nesta, Nesta..._


	3. Part Three

Nesta loves to fly.

Though she didn’t at first. Not when Rhysand dove down from that awful House, making sure to hit every turbulent air current on the way, making a show that he could drop her at any moment.

He should have dropped her then. Let her fall. But he didn’t. He only wanted to scare her, humble her, embarrass her. Because he didn’t like her on principle and because his honor as Feyre’s mate demanded it. Feyre, who always had to fix things. Feyre, who cannot bear to let the cracks of broken things show, to cover all their scars with beautiful paintings so that none of them had to confront their pain, their disgrace, their humiliation.

Nesta felt it all anyway.  

Yet there was only one time, after she had been remade, where she felt that agony wane.

_Ready for some flying, Nes?_

By contrast, Cassian’s flight had been...smooth, graceful. He was still cocky, had obviously been showing off for her benefit (or discomfort, or perhaps both). But she enjoyed it, took childish wonder and pleasure in it. The breathless feeling of being able to look down on the world from the safety of his arms was...exhilarating. And he knew that. He knew.

_You’re welcome._

It’s his bitter echo that tolls through her mind as she falls...and falls...and falls...

She should have told him how much she liked it, how much she likes it still. She wishes they could have had more flights that weren’t tinged with ire or danger or grief. It’s one more sorrow to the many she's accumulated. She hopes it will be the last.

“Thank you,” she whispers, closing her eyes.

* * *

_Too late, too late, too late._

“Nesta!”

Cassian burns through the night sky like a red star, his power staining the dark clouds like so much bloodshed. His wings beat in time with the crash of thunder and it is all he can do to keep his heart from lurching out of his throat as he watches her plummet into the sea.

“Nesta!”

He flies fast, banking left, then right, cutting across wind currents as sharp as blades. He flies faster than he ever has in his five centuries of living. And still, he knows...he knows it will not be enough. The truth of it settles somewhere in his belly, cold and writhing like a serpent. Its poison spreads through his veins.

He still has to try.

“ _NESTA!_ ”

But he is too late.

* * *

Somehow, across the howling wind, Nesta hears him scream her name.

She remembers how she called to him once, the exact same way. There had been a wild, desperation in her voice, a fear and panic that nearly stopped her heart.

She knows, deep down, that Cassian will never forgive her for it. He wanted to die alongside those soldiers. Throw his life away for the very people who looked down at him like garbage. Though she grants that she’s treated him the same way—and here he is, still trying to save her.

She wants to tell him not to.

When the sea takes her, she imagines a glass globe her father once brought from some island abroad. It had a figurine inside it, a dancer. She had broken it in her fury, had let it drop to the floor because no amount of gifts from abroad could ever make her forgive the fact that her father had left her ashore. She remembers that figurine now, broken and shattered, no longer able to dance.

* * *

 

Cassian is too late.

* * *

Sometimes, the end is actually a beginning.

Nesta sinks into a dark and endless black. She has been here before, drifting inside a pitiless void. In her nightmares, it is always the Cauldron. Will she ever be free of it? Even dormant on some hidden faerie isle, the ancient and terrible thing calls to her. Its hold is unshakable.

_Nesta..._

All her life, people have been taking things from her. Her freedom, her safety, her choices. They had tried to mold her into something she was _not_ . So when the Cauldron sought to do the same, she decided to avenge herself. _Why shouldn’t she?_

_Nesta…_

Her fingers twitch at the sound of her name. He calls to her still. She wishes he wouldn’t. _Let me go_ , she wants to say. _Let me go._ But he doesn’t. It’s that Illyrian stubbornness her sister went on about; that persistent instinct to protect.  

_NESTA..._

The world trembles as her feet touch the bottom of the ocean floor.

And when Nesta Archeron opens her eyes, they burn with a silver-white fire.

* * *

Cassian refuses to rest. He will fly all night if he has to, even if his instincts tell him that it’s futile. He circles, then dives. The waves are unforgiving while the storm bears down on him with all its might, its jaws relentless. Still, he searches...and searches and searches.

 _Where are you? Where_ **_are_ ** _you?_

It’s a thousand times worse than that day in Hybern’s throne room. Worse because, unlike then, he is whole and hale. How many times has he cut himself on that serrated memory? How many more times will he break his promise to her?

 _There’s no coming back from this_ , a cold voice whispers. _You’ve failed her for the last time._

His vision blurs. Hopelessness mutes the chaos around him. He has lost her in the most final and ultimate sense and he doesn’t....he can’t...

_Please._

He reaches deep within himself to find...he doesn’t know if he can give it a name. Most of the time, he doubts that it even exists. This thread, this tie between them, is as immaterial as smoke. There are only a few times where he has felt it, or _thinks_ he has felt it, and one of them was the day she had been thrown into the Cauldron.

_What did you wake that day in Hybern, Prince of Bastards?_

Even then, he isn’t sure. He was half-dead and barely conscious. But now, all he feels is a maddening terror, a primal call that tells him to defy destiny and the divine. _This is not how it’s going to end_ , he thinks. _I will not allow it._

So he reaches and reaches. Still, there is nothing. No answer. Terror gives way to rage. Rage at himself. Rage at the world. He feels his power building and building, rushing to the surface like molten lava.

Then he sees it.

A circle of silver-white fire lighting upon the water.

* * *

Nesta rises like a star reborn.

Were her sister here to paint it, this is what she would have seen: a woman with her hair woven with a halo of blinding white light, ascending towards the storm-dark heavens like a saint. She lifts her hands to part the sea. She quiets the thunder and banishes bolts of lightning to the far and distant horizon. Everything settles and it is as if time has frozen.

This is power in its most raw and purest form.

As it is, only Cassian is there to witness it. And all he feels is fear: not fear of her, but fear _for_ her. That the power locked within her heart will one day consume her from within. He knows, more than anyone, the consequences of unleashing that kind of fury on the world, even on the ones who deserve it.

The silver-white fire that limned her body gutters out. It shines and then dulls, and with it, so does Nesta. She descends. But more slowly now, like a leaf in autumn.

This time, Cassian doesn’t hesitate. He flies so hard that he is sure the boom of his wings can be heard all the way in Velaris. He catches her slack form and clutches her to him. There is an overwhelming need to be close, to feel her skin, to breathe in her scent, to know that she is alive. And she _is_ alive, thank the Mother.

Her blue-gray eyes blink and then shutter. Her exhaustion can be felt in his soul. She has spent all of her reserves and the magnitude of her has drained her to a mere wisp. Were she still human, she would have not survived it. The relief that Cassian feels warms him all over as he shields them both from the elements.

“Nesta,” he whispers, cradling her body, gathering the wet strands of her unbound hair. “Nesta.”

* * *

This isn’t the first time Cassian has kept a vigil. Mother knows how many times he sat by the bedsides of both his brothers as they recovered from war wounds and worse.

This is worse.

Nesta lies prone on makeshift pallet he has dragged in front of the fireplace. It’s her stillness that unnerves him. Had it not been for her slow—far too slow—intakes of breaths and barely there heartbeat, he would...he doesn’t want to think about what he would do. It is the reverse of the being he saw rising from the sea: small, faded, and diminished. Now she looks like a ghost or a maiden in a fairy tale, doomed to sleep forever with no one but him to watch over her.

It will be a day or so before Madja would arrive and assess Nesta herself. He has done all he can for her in the meantime and can do nothing else but pray that it’s enough. He hopes it’s enough.

He can’t stomach seeing her this way.

“Cassian…Cassian…”

 _I’m here,_ he wants to say, _I’m her_ e. But he doesn’t. It’s as though he’s swallowed a thorn. Instead, he murmurs soothing not-words. Rumbles, whispers, half-songs in his own language. Nonsense things he would say to calm a youngling in the midst of a nightmare. Though it only worked to a certain point.

Sweat beads at her temples and she begins to twist in earnest. He doesn’t want to see her in pain and he would do anything to free her of it. So he combs his rough fingers through her hair. He does it before he can talk himself out of it. He does it softly, shyly. Until she calms and leans into his touch.

It breaks something in him that is already fractured.

Has anyone ever comforted her like this before? It’s hard for him to imagine: Nesta, as a little girl and not as the devastating woman he has come to know. But as the hours passed, he could begin to see it. Nesta as a hardy, young thing, with skinned knees and a sober and curious expression. A girl that would seldom smile, but when she did...

“ _Cassian_ …”

This time, she reaches for him and the urgency of her movements is something he cannot ignore. He climbs onto the pallet with her, folding her into his wings, giving in to the instinct, the bone-deep _need_ , to ward away the nightmares that hold her in thrall. She presses herself against him, burrowing into his warmth, tucking her head beneath his chin.

He marvels at how right it all feels, how inevitable, even. That the two of them would end up in each other’s arms after everything.

As the fire burns low, with the room lit only by embers, they hold each other close, keeping the darkness at bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for Part 4! 
> 
> And thanks for reading, my loves. I know...I just can't keep myself from expanding this. But there's a lot of character work that I'd like Nessian to go through that can't be confined to a single chapter. Real life notwithstanding, I'm hoping to make more regular updates to this fic.


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